


the best damn thing

by dutchydoescoke



Series: when you take me by the hand [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheerleaders, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9100633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: Josh wants it on record that he only tries out because Vas is an asshole.
The one where Josh joins the cheerleading squad.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liggytheauthoress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liggytheauthoress/gifts).



> I have no excuse. _None._ Have small town high school AU, cheerleader!Faraday, and every romcom best-friends-who-fall-in-love trope I could come up with, barring fake-dating and bedsharing. I blame sleep deprivation and my subconscious. This is legit the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written to date, and I’m counting the 16k of fake-dating fic for Teen Wolf.
> 
> Fic title from Avril Lavigne’s song of the same name. Series title from "Mickey" by Toni Basil. Because cheerleaders.
> 
> Warning for brief mentions of homophobia and transphobia and an abusive relationship, as well as a little bit of internalized transphobia. I can’t write cis Faraday to save my life. *shrug*
> 
> Dedicated to liggytheauthoress, who, when I said “I dreamed about cheerleader!Faraday last night and kinda wanna write it”, told me to do it and then tried to beat Josh and Vas with a baseball bat when they were being idiots. Here's your Christmas gift.

Josh wants it on record that he only tries out because Vas is an _asshole_.

He’d only been looking at the damn bulletin board to find the lunch calendar so he knew whether or not to grab a sandwich from the grocery store before school this week when Vas had come up and pointed at the flier.

“Thinking about joining the cheerleading squad, güero?” Vas had paused, looked him over, and smirked. “Or should I say ‘güera’?”

“I will hit you,” Josh had replied, flipping him off and looking back at the lunch calendar, but it was already too late. Vas had known better by then, or Josh had thought, to not say shit like that. Too late now.

Now, Josh is standing on the football field next to a dozen different girls that are all looking at him like he’s just there to look up their skirts. (He’s as bi as they come, he won’t lie, but he knows better. For one, Emma would beat him to hell and back for trying while Sam gave him disappointed looks. For another, he’s been hung up on his best friend since the start of freshman year.)

There’s a call from the table that’s sitting at the fifty-yard line, a loud, echoing _Josh Faraday_ that startles him a little, considering the person yelling his name is _tiny_. All of the other girls turn and look at him when he walks over and he resists the urge to hide his face or duck his head. He doesn’t half-ass anything, including this, and if he’s gonna make Vas eat his words, he needs to ignore the embarrassment.

When they tell him what they want him to do, he takes a moment to be thankful for the fact that Emma made him take gymnastics with her when they were younger, and that he’s enough of an asshole to have kept practicing just to make people lose their shit when he does a back handspring. He can tell by the fact that he’s the only guy here and the way they’re all staring that they don’t expect him to succeed. It’s kind of hilarious.

The flips and jumps were his favorite part of gymnastics and he still loves them, the brief moments where he feels almost like he’s flying. He even manages to stick the landing for once. Last time, he’d fallen on his ass and Vas hadn’t stopped laughing for days about it.

Josh looks up at the bleachers without thinking about it, not really expecting to find anyone there. To his surprise, the entire crew is there, Vas crammed between Emma and Sam while Billy and Goody sit behind them and— Josh makes a face up at them and Billy gives him the finger in response. Fucking stoners.

He pulls his eyes away from where Red’s miming like he’s going to shoot Vas to look back at the truly _tiny_ cheerleader captain, who’s outright staring at him like she hadn’t expected that. To be fair, his gymnastic abilities are only known to their group and his mother, so he’s not surprised. He’d kept it quiet to avoid the assholes.

She doesn’t tell him whether he makes it or not, just tells them all that the list will go up on the board in the morning, so Josh shrugs and climbs the bleachers to sit with his friends.

“I wasn’t _serious_ , güero. You know that, right?” Vas asks, looking at him like he’s gone insane. Maybe he has. He just tried out for the fucking cheer squad. God.

“My question is this: Since the cheerleading squad’s all girls, if you make it, what are you going to _wear_?” Goody could always be trusted to drag the conversation straight to the awkwardest possible topic when he was high. Josh figures he’ll find that one out right after he finds out if made the squad, but he’s not sure. They might just order him one of the guy’s uniforms.

“I’m guessing they’ll order one for him,” Sam says, saving him from trying to answer Goody. Billy, ever the asshole, starts cracking up hard enough that he almost drops the pack of matches in his hand.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking Josh up and down in a way that makes him distinctly uncomfortable. “He might not look too bad in a skirt.”

Josh knows a challenge when he hears one. Judging by Billy’s smirk, so does he.

Fine. Billy wants to see him make a fool of himself in a skirt, Josh will. He’d rather do that than back down from a challenge as blatant as that one.

* * *

He checks the list as soon as he gets out of homeroom in the morning, cheering a little ( _ha_ ) when he sees _Josh Faraday_ between the names of two girls he doesn’t recall meeting. He grins and makes note of when they’re meeting (sixth period) and where (the gym), resolving to solve the uniform issue as soon as he can.

He won’t back down from a challenge.

And he won’t lie to himself, can’t lie to himself, the idea of wearing a skirt sparks something that he can’t name, that he _won’t_ name. But he can’t deal with that right now, not when Vas is walking over with a shit-eating grin, so he balls it up and shoves it into the back of his head to be ignored for the foreseeable future.

“You make it?” Vas asks, nodding at the board.

“See for yourself,” Josh says, gesturing to the list. He doesn’t move, which means Vas has to lean into his personal space to read the list, and Josh cusses himself out in two languages for not realizing he should move. Proximity with Vas is never a good idea, his self-control is shit at the best of times and seems to be tied to how close Vas is to him.

The challenge Billy issued a year ago still rattles around in his head when Vas gets too close. It’s the only challenge he’s backed down from, too wary of fucking things up with Vas to go through with it. _Just kiss him_ , Billy had said, tone and smirk the same as they’d been yesterday when he’d thrown down the gauntlet over the skirt. There’s no _just_ with Vas, and Billy knows that.

“Felicidades, güero.” Vas, for all the trouble he gets Josh into, means that with sincerity, at least. Josh isn’t sure he’ll stick around the squad too long, but he’s going to try, if only to satisfy Billy.

“Gracias, since it’s your fault,” Josh says, elbowing Vas in the side pointedly. “Need a ride home after soccer practice?”

“Sí. See you then.”

Josh heads off to his class, watching the clock until sixth period. It takes years, he swears. By the time he gets to the gym, he’ll be old and gray and look awful in the skirt. He’s louder than usual at lunch, nervous energy channeling itself into his antics. Trying to distract himself, he ends up pulling out his trick deck and messing with Teddy while Vas sits next to him, a warm, solid line against his side.

He’s not sure what he’ll do with himself, if they say no. There’s more riding on this than just his pride, and he knows he won’t go looking for a skirt on his own, not without a reason to write it off like he would have with cheerleading. He hopes, he _prays_ , that they say yes, that they let him wear it. He doesn’t know why it means so much to him, but he wants it all the same, an ache in his chest matched only by how Vas makes him feel.

When sixth period rolls around, he shuffles into the gym, sneakers scuffing the polished wood floor, the death grip on his backpack strap the only indicator of his nervousness. He hasn’t been this wary of something since he’d climbed up to Vas’s window last year after their (rather epic) blowout, covered in bruises, after a fight with his then-boyfriend. Vas had been the supportive best friend then, and he’s hoping the squad is anywhere near that nice.

The captain smiles at him, bright and sunny, not unlike Vas’s smile, and introduces herself as Leni. The rest of the older squad introduce themselves before the new ones start. When it gets to Josh, he puts on his best sheepish grin and shrugs.

“Josh Faraday, but I think you guys already knew that one,” he says and the rest of them laugh, because he’s right. He’s the only guy on the squad, now, and he suspects they all know who he is. If not from tryouts and the list, then from the incident in the cafeteria at the end of last year that ended with chocolate pudding all over their table, a tray that had formerly held four of the cafeteria tacos, and Josh getting sent home with a nasty case of food poisoning.

Vas had said that eating the school tacos was a stupid idea, but a bet was a bet and Josh wasn’t going to lose to Teddy, of all people. He won, but the three hours he spent in front of the toilet, losing everything he’d eaten that day, wasn’t worth it. (Vas had cut class the rest of the day and stayed with him while his mom was at work, bringing him water and rubbing his back when his stomach rebelled again. Falling asleep on the couch with him afterward was still one of Josh’s favorite memories.)

“There’s the minor issue of your uniform, Josh,” Leni says, bringing him back to the present. “We can order you one and have it here in a week. You’ll be stuck in the exercise gear until then, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

The question’s on the tip of his tongue, itching to be let out. It’d be easy enough, he knows. _What about the other ones? I can live with those._

But he can’t, too wary of people’s opinions of him. (Of Vas’s opinion of him.) They stay stuck inside, and he nods, hoping he doesn’t look as miserable as he feels.

Leni is more perceptive than he thinks, though, and he finds himself pulled over to the dusty box of uniforms. Leni looks him over for a second before she starts rummaging through the box while he just stands there, confused as all hell and refusing to let himself hope.

“You might want to shave your legs, but these should fit,” she says, surfacing with one of the uniforms and shoving it at him with a smile. “You’ll stand out less anyway.”

He doubts that, but he can’t manage the words, running his thumb over the trim on the top and wanting to find out how it looks on him. He can’t manage even a ‘thank you’ past the lump in his throat, but Leni saves him from having to say anything by continuing with her speech.

“Basic white sneakers and ankle socks with them. We switch to knee-highs in winter, around the time we break out the turtlenecks,” Leni says, kicking her foot against another box next to her. “We ordered them special. And if one of you ruins any of them, you’ll be doing laps around the track every day for a month.”

Josh revises his earlier thoughts on the squad and decides he might just stick around after all, if Leni and the rest of them are as cool as they seem.

The rest of the period flies by in an explanation of the rules and questions from the new girls, while Josh sits back and plays with the gold trim on the shirt until the bell rings.

He’s bent over, putting the uniform in his bag, when Leni calls his name. When he looks up, she holds up a small ziplock bag for a minute before tossing it to him. There’s a razor and a travel-size can of shaving cream, the kind designed for someone’s legs, inside and he looks back up at her, smiling in thanks.

“We keep emergency supplies on hand in case someone needs them before an event,” she explains, nodding at the bag in his hand. “I figure you might want to try your uniform on so we know if we need to order a larger one before the soccer game next weekend. Something tells me you’ll want to shave before then. Just replace it for us before the next game.”

The uniform will fit, he knows it from spending the entire period staring at it, and he tells her as much. (She is right about the shaving thing, though. His legs look terrible.)

“If you’re sure,” she says, and walks out, door closing behind her. The bell rings again and he swears, shoving the bag in his backpack and sprinting out of the gym. He’s late for English and his teacher might kill him, if Vas doesn’t first for apparently leaving him to suffer it alone.

* * *

After school is the first practice, and Josh ducks out of eighth period early to change into his practice clothes. He nicks himself once or twice trying to shave his legs, because he is _not_ wearing shorts or that skirt looking like the ginger cousin of a Wookie. Fuck that.

(He has so much more respect for Emma after trying that. He knew it was hard, and attempting to do it himself proves it. He has no idea how the hell she gets used to it.)

Practice is hard and tiring and he thinks he loses ten pounds in sweat alone while Leni runs them through the basics and starts teaching them some of the routines they’ll use at the soccer game. One girl asks why they don’t cheer at the football games and Josh almost cracks up at Leni’s answer.

“We’ll start cheering at the football games when they stop losing. Even the principal won’t make us cheer at their games. Not worth the time,” she says. He gets that one, he’s been to the games with the group back when Teddy still played. There’s a reason Vas is on the soccer team. “Now, back to practice.”

It’s a long, exhausting two hours before Leni lets them go and tells them to make sure they’re back tomorrow for the next practice. (She also tells them they’re welcome to quit if it’s too touch, and Josh wonders if she’s been talking to Billy. Her challenges sound exactly like his.)

Josh can’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum for his shower, and gathers his stuff and heads out to his truck, where Vas is leaning against the side of it and waiting for him.

“You survived,” Vas calls, once he’s in earshot.

“Barely.” He tosses his bag in the truck bed where Vas’s gym bag and backpack already are and climbs into the driver’s side. “You coming over or going home?”

“Your place, por favor. Ana has a new boyfriend.” Josh winces in sympathy. He likes Ana and the rest of Vas’s sisters, but Ana has a terrible track record with guys. She’d tried to date him, even, and if that isn’t enough of an indicator of her taste, Josh doesn’t know what is.

He starts the truck and pulls out of the lot. He doesn’t live far, his town’s not big enough for him to live very far, but he takes Vas home more often than not and he knows hauling that gym bag can be a bitch. (And, really, he’s too lazy to walk home. Driving takes less effort.)

“What’s the verdict on the uniform?” Vas asks, the question startling Josh enough that he almost drives off the road. Correcting buys him a minute to think before he replies, so he can come up with something other than _I asked for one of the girl’s uniforms and almost got horrifically choked up when they gave me one_.

“The captain mentioned ordering one for me,” he says eventually. It’s not a lie, but he doesn’t know how Vas will react to him in a skirt and he doesn’t want to lose Vas just yet. He knows that Vas is his best friend, that Vas took him being bi with no problems, that Vas’ll have his back through pretty much anything, but Vas means too much to him at this point for him to risk it. Especially over something that Josh isn’t sure about.

* * *

They’re sprawled on the couch, Josh’s English textbook open on his lap, when he realizes he needs his notebook. He doesn’t particularly want to move, though, so he reaches over and pokes Vas with his pencil until Vas smacks his hand away.

“What do want, güero?” he asks, letting out a long-suffering sigh that makes Josh grin.

“Hand me my English notebook? It’s in my bag,” Josh says, looking back down at his textbook while Vas shifts around to get it and grumbles at him in Spanish. He looks up when Vas goes quiet and drops his pencil. _Fuck_. He’d forgotten.

Vas is holding the skirt, pleats all messed up from being shoved in his bag, and Josh flinches when Vas lifts the hand with the skirt in it. The flinch wasn’t conscious, wasn’t intentional, but the hurt and horror in Vas’s face makes him feel awful anyway. He _knows_ Vas won’t hurt him, and his flinch is just a reflex Josh had thought was long dead, but he still feels horrible. If there’s one person Josh can trust to not hurt him, it’s Vas. The silence is stifling and awkward and Josh just wants Vas to say something, _anything_ , cause god knows he has no clue what to say to make this any better.

There’s the sound of a key in the door and Josh snatches the skirt out of Vas’s hands and shoves it back in the bag. His mom walks through the door less than a minute later and Josh forces a smile for her, so she doesn’t worry.

“Maybe I should go,” Vas says, soft and quiet, and Josh is a coward. He looks down at his book so he can talk to it instead of Vas. He can’t stand the look in Vas’s eyes, like he’s realizing that Josh is too weird, too much of a freak, for him. That this is the final straw when it comes to their friendship. (Hell, he’s still surprised Vas stuck around after their fight over his ex last year. The skirt being Vas’s breaking point wouldn’t be much of a shock.)

“Yeah, maybe.” He glances back up at Vas’s face and winces at the hurt look. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks.” Josh grabs his keys and puts his book back in his bag while Vas gathers his stuff.

The ride to Vas’s is short, at least, even if it’s awkward and silent the entire way. When he pulls up in front of the house, he takes a deep breath and starts talking. If Vas wants to stop being friends with him over this, Josh will live—he’ll _have_ to—but he can at least try to explain it before Vas makes that decision.

“I was going to try it on when you went home,” he starts, eyes on the steering wheel, hands clenched around it to ground him. “I can’t explain it, V, just that I wanted to try it. Just once. If I hated it, I’d get a regular uniform and be fine. But, Vas, I want it and I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense beyond that. It wasn’t something I was keeping from you to hurt you or whatever, I just don’t want to lose you, yeah?”

He risks a look over at Vas, hoping that maybe this wouldn’t be the self-destruct button on their friendship, that they’d make it through this like the game of Seven Minutes In Heaven when they were dumb twelve-year-olds who ended up getting their braces stuck together. Like they’d survived the fight over Josh’s then-boyfriend. Vas looks a little surprised and a lot relieved by the time Josh is done talking. Which, what?

“You’re not gonna lose me, güero,” he says, rolling his eyes in such an over-dramatic fashion that Josh can’t help but laugh. “I sat through you puking for three and a half hours because you were a dumbass who didn’t listen. I beat the hell out of your ex because of what he did to you. I even lived through you dating my _sister_. It’s going to take more than a skirt for me to leave.” He pauses for a second before adding, “besides, it would take too much effort to sort through our shit and return each other’s stuff. And I _will_ want my clothes back if we stop being friends. My varsity jacket too, for that matter. So you’re stuck with me.”

“You’re such an asshole, oh my god.” Josh shoves at Vas’s shoulder and starts the car again. He’s grinning like a loon and he knows it, but he’s used to looking like an idiot in front of Vas. “For that, you’re paying for dinner. And you’re never getting that jacket back. Like, ever.”

* * *

Practice the next day requires the uniform, Leni says, and it takes more effort than he expects to keep his nerves in check while he pulls it on. The skirt flares out a little when he moves and the pleats make it fit easier. And it _does_ fit, like he thought. It’s comfortable. It feels nice.

It feels right, and something in him settles. It feels a little like home, if Josh is being honest.

He can’t say that, though, can’t tell anyone. _Won’t_ tell anyone that, aside from Vas. He’ll wear it and say it’s for the squad. He’ll say it’s cheaper for him to sacrifice his pride and wear a skirt than to order one of the guy’s uniforms. He doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing. He’s not about to tell anyone else. Vas is only getting told because, as proven last night, Josh can’t keep anything from him.

Stepping out onto the field again is easily the most terrifying thing he’s done in his life, and he’s including the time he tried to ask Emma out. But the rest of the squad all smile at him and pull him further out onto the field and then it’s practice time, and he doesn’t have the energy or the time to think until it’s two hours later and he’s heading back to the locker room to grab his stuff.

Vas is in there when he opens the door, and Josh smiles.

“So, what do you think?” he asks, doing an overly ridiculous twirl to make the skirt flare out. Vas grins at him, soft and fond, like Josh is something special. He wants to memorize that look, wants to recall it on the days when he’s feeling like shit, to remember how Vas looks like he cares, like he loves Josh back. Josh wants that, more than anything, wants Vas to love him back, but he knows better than to hope for it. He’s under no illusions that Vas could or would ever love him, of all people, considering Vas has seen him at his absolute worst. He knows better than to tell Vas that, though. He’d fall in love with Josh just to spite him.

“You look good,” Vas says, stepping closer. Josh’s grin softens and he curses his complexion when he realizes he’s actually fucking _blushing_ like a goddamn schoolgirl. What the _fuck_. He takes a step back when he realizes how close Vas is and hits the locker room door, trying to maintain what little self-control he still has with Vas’s proximity. Vas just moves closer still, an apparently unconscious movement, since, before Josh can say anything, Vas shakes his head like he’s clearing it. “Sorry, it looks good on you.”

Josh feels Vas’s hand at his waist, a light, tentative touch that’s almost non-existent, and he swallows in an attempt to help his suddenly-dry throat. Vas is _right the fuck there_ and his hand is sliding down Josh’s side until it’s hovering over the skirt’s hem.

“Can I?” And Josh _knows_ what Vas is asking for, knows that he shouldn’t agree. He knows that he should say no, that this is just Vas getting distracted by the skirt, not because he’s interested, and that it’s going to kill Josh when Vas pulls away and everything goes back to normal, but he nods anyway, because if this is all he gets, he’ll take it. Vas’s hand slips under the hem and rests against his thigh, just as light and tentative as before. Too afraid to snap Vas out of whatever trance he’s in, Josh just rests his hands on Vas’s hips and tries not to move otherwise. It’s not like Vas remembers that his hand is in exactly the wrong spot for this to not get awkward, and it’s not like Josh can just remind him of that, either. A year’s a long time to remember information like that.

He looks back up at Vas’s face, where Vas is just staring back at him, like he’s figuring out a puzzle or something, though Josh has no idea why. Vas knows almost everything about him at this point anyway. Before Josh can ask why Vas is looking at him like that, Vas moves his hand, trailing his fingers along the skin of Josh’s thigh and Josh bites his lip to keep from making any kind of noise that he’d qualify as embarrassing. The shorts that go under the uniform cover plenty, and he can feel Vas following the edge of them, touches still light, like any more pressure would make Josh move. He’s wrong, if that’s the case. Josh won’t move unless someone drags him away right now, not with Vas this close and touching him the way he is. It’s a repeat of something Josh didn’t think he’d ever manage to get again. He’s not moving unless Vas does.

Vas is still staring at him, and the soft expression’s back, and Josh lets himself start to hope that maybe he’s not alone in this. That maybe he was wrong and Vas does feel something for him. He swallows again, gathers the same courage that he used to pull the skirt on earlier, and leans in, resting one of his hands in Vas’s hair and pulling him closer. Vas’s hand shifts, slides under the edge of the shorts, and Josh lets out a startled gasp when Vas’s nails catch and drag across his skin. _Fuck_ , he’d forgotten about that and what it did to him. His hand tightens in Vas’s hair, an automatic response, and Vas pauses at the worst possible moment. He’s _right there_ , and all Josh wants to do is kiss him and find out if he’s wrong.

“Can I—”

The knock at the door interrupts Vas and startles them both, and before Josh can do or say anything, Vas pulls away and retreats to the other side of the room. _Fuck_.

The person at the door is Leni, coming to give him his phone back since he’d left it outside, and Josh squashes the urge to throw something. Like his phone.

When he gets Leni to finally leave, Vas is gone.

* * *

His 911 text to the group gets him Emma, Goody and Billy piled in his room, looking at him with curious expressions. Well, Goody’s curious. Billy looks bored and Emma looks like she wants to shoot him. The fact that he’s still in his uniform doesn’t seem to faze them in the slightest.

“Does _this_ 911 text have anything to do with the 911 text Vasquez sent out?” Goody asks and Josh flushes at the mention of Vas and the unintentional reminder of what happened. “I’m taking that as a yes.”

“Fucking finally,” Billy says, ignoring Josh’s death glare.

“We might have almost kissed in the locker room earlier.” It’s an understatement, but unless they outright ask, he’s not going to volunteer the information that he let his best friend put a hand up his skirt, and almost let him do far worse.

“That’s not what Vasquez said.” Goody holds up his phone so Josh can read the text from Sam.

_Vasquez says he groped Josh without even asking. Trying to get the non-exaggerated version out of him now. He’s kind of upset with himself._

Josh ignores Goody’s raised eyebrows and frowns at the text. That wasn’t what happened, but Vas has always had a guilty conscience and blows things a little out of proportion. When Goody prods again, he sighs and tells the truth.

“Okay, fine, he had his hand up my skirt and we almost kissed. Before anything else could happen, though, Leni knocked on the door and startled the shit out of us, happy?”

“You owe me thirty bucks,” Billy says, holding a hand out towards Goody. “I told you the skirt would do it.”

“You’re a year late on that one,” Josh says. When Billy gives him a bewildered look, he just raises his hands in the universal ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. “What? We slept together after my birthday last year.”

Billy twitches and looks faintly murderous. “You’re both idiots.”

What Josh said seems to sink in for Emma and Goody, because they both stop and stare, Emma’s thumbs hovering over the screen of her phone.

“What?” Josh crosses his arms, trying not to get too defensive.

“You slept with Vasquez?” Goody asks, like this is some huge thing that Josh has been keeping from them. It’s not, it only happened once, and Josh is fairly certain that if Vas meant anything by it, they’d have had that discussion last year, before Josh’s ex even happened.

“Yeah.”

“You’re both idiots,” Billy repeats.

Josh resists the urge to throw something at Billy. It’s difficult, but he manages it.

“ _Anyway_. I just. I need advice on how to talk to him about it. I don’t wanna fuck this up.”

“You won’t,” Emma says, eyes back on her phone while her thumbs move a mile a minute again. “Go tell Vasquez you’re in love with him and have been since grade school and you’ll be fine.”

“The skirt probably won’t hurt, either,” Goody adds, helpful as always. Josh groans and scrubs a hand over his face in frustration. He needs new friends.

* * *

In the end, he chickens out. He’s a coward when it comes to Vas, and he sends a text asking if they’re cool after what happened earlier. For all he likes to gamble and play the odds, he’d rather go back to the way they were than risk losing Vas completely.

Vas doesn’t reply for almost an hour, while Josh pesters the rest of his friends in an attempt do distract himself. The text he gets back is short, but it makes Josh grin all the same.

_I suppose, loser. God only knows why the fuck I’m friends with you in the first place._

His phone buzzes again before he can reply.

_Open the damn door._

A glance out his window shows Vas standing next to the tree in Josh’s front yard, face lit up by the screen of his phone and holding a bag of some kind. He almost trips in his haste to get downstairs, too relieved that Vas is here to worry about looking like a dumbass. By the time he yanks open the front door, Vas is standing on the porch with a tentative smile, like he’s still worried that Josh hates him or something.

“Come on, my room,” Josh says, turning to head upstairs and almost missing the way Vas stares at him and watches the skirt flare out when he moves. He’d almost forgotten he’s still wearing it, as comfortable as it is. He’s still in his socks, sneakers long since kicked off and knocked under his bed, and he slides across the floor before he heads upstairs.

When they’re back in his room, Vas’s shoes piled next to his, and propped up on his bed, legs slung over Vas’s lap, Josh is content to sit there for the moment. In all the worry of the past day or so, about the skirt, about what happened in the locker room, he hasn’t gotten to just relax with Vas. He looks up when he feels Vas’s hands resting on his shins. He doesn’t even do anything with them, just rests them there, but it drags Josh’s mind back to the locker room earlier, and leaves him in dire need of a distraction before he does something stupid, like try to kiss Vas again.

“What’s in the bag?” he asks, for lack of a better conversation topic. Vas brightens and shoves it at him, looking almost sheepish when Josh opens it.

“I didn’t know if this was entirely cool, but it’s a peace offering, sort of. If I needed one,” he says as Josh pulls the skirt out. It’s denim, the same color as his favorite jeans, and looks long enough that it’ll go almost to his knees when he puts it on. He looks back up at Vas, smiling wide enough that it starts to hurt after a minute, and throws the empty bag at him. It’s as close as he can manage to a ‘thanks’.

“We still need to work on your fashion sense, but it’s not hideous.” He ducks when Vas throws a pillow at him in retaliation.

“I’m being serious, cabrón,” Vas says, rolling his eyes at Josh’s antics. “I’ll have your back, you know that, right? If any assholes show up and you, god forbid, need help, anyway.”

“Thanks, but I can probably handle it better than you could.” That’s something he can reply to without sounding pathetic, thank god. “You hungry?”

“Get pizza. Your treat.” Josh throws a pillow at him and dials Gavin’s. “Hey, I bought you the skirt. You can buy pizza.”

* * *

Things are almost back to normal the next morning, barring the skirt Josh is wearing, which turned out a lot shorter than he thought. It’s barely within the dress code restrictions, and Josh understands why he sees so many girls wearing tights under skirts this short. Vas’s face when Josh picks him up in the morning makes him feel better about it, if nothing else. He looks stunned, like Josh doesn’t look ridiculous in a skirt and t-shirt and a plaid shirt that he’s 97% sure he stole from Vas a month ago.

He picks up the rest of the group, since he seems to be the only one with a working car, and only goes twenty on the back roads to school so nobody gets injured bouncing around the bed of his truck. (He knows he’s not getting pulled over for it. The cops don’t give a shit what the high schoolers get up to unless it’s arson or theft, or, on one memorable occasion, beating each other to hell and back. Him hauling his friends to school isn’t even a blip on the radar.)

None of them give him shit for it, when he manages to make himself get out of the car, though that might have as much to do with the glare Vas levels in their direction as their actual attitude towards his clothes.

“You’re worse than a boyfriend sometimes, jeez,” he says, elbowing Vas in the side as he walks past.

“And I thank God every day for the fact that I’m not.” Josh rolls his eyes and kicks at Vas’s ankle. He knows better than to think Vas honestly means that in a negative way, even if it _is_ a reminder that Vas isn’t interested.

“If you were actually dating me, you’d be singing a different tune, Vas.” Just because Vas doesn’t want to date him doesn’t mean Josh isn’t going to give him shit, though.

“I doubt it.”

The warning bell rings, telling Josh that if he doesn’t hightail it, he’s going to be late for math, so he just makes a face at Vas and starts walking.

“See you at lunch!” Vas calls and Josh just flips him off in response.

He decides he’s going to find _something_ to wear under the skirt the second he sits down at his desk. His skin keeps sticking to the chair, which is fucking _cold_. He might drag Vas to the clothing store after practice and bribe him with dinner at the diner afterward.

Josh rewinds and revises that thought. He might drag someone along and bribe them with dinner after. He’s too hung up on his best friend, and the last couple of days are a pointed reminder that he needs to get over Vas. Maybe he’ll convince Billy or something. Time spent with someone who isn’t Vas is a good thing, even if he’d rather spend his evening fighting over the last bite of the cheesecake slice they’ll end up sharing and stealing Vas’s fries.

He asks Emma at lunch, since she’s the only one other than Vas, Goody and Sam that tolerates him for longer than five minutes without trying to stab him.

“I do something to offend you, güero?” Josh groans and drops his forehead to rest on the table. He feels a hand on his shoulder and knows it’s Vas, rubbing at it like he had when Josh had food poisoning. Vas is the best boyfriend Josh has ever had and they’re not even _dating_. He _really_ needs to get over Vas.

“No, I just figured you’d rather work on homework than get dragged clothes shopping,” he says to the tabletop, refusing to raise his head and look at Vas. “Hell, I’d rather work on homework than go shopping, but a short skirt and these seats is _hell_.”

“We can work on homework after, and we can get dinner at the diner.” Vas sounds like he’s pointing out the obvious and Josh wonders when the fuck his life got to this point, where going on a not-date with his best friend became the obvious plan for his free time. “Besides, Emma’s more likely to tell you to buy something hideous for fun. At least I’ll be honest.”

Josh refuses to look up at Vas and keeps his forehead glued to the table, trying to find a way out of this without hurting Vas’s feelings. He’s starting to suspect that the only way is to give in.

“Fine, but you’re paying for dinner.”

“Por supuesto,” Vas says. When Josh raises his head, he sees Vas is smiling at him like yesterday, when Josh had asked his opinion, and Josh’s heart stutters in his chest at the sight. He’s so fucked.

* * *

Plans to go shopping get derailed when Josh comes out of the gym after practice to find Vas nursing the beginnings of a spectacular-looking black eye and bruised knuckles.

“What the hell did you do now?” he asks, tossing his bag in the truck bed and leaning in to look at Vas’s face closer. Nothing’s broken, it seems, just bruised, and his hand’s fine. Vas mutters something in Spanish that would be grounds for a fight if they were aimed at him, and Josh sighs. “Who said what?”

“They called you my girlfriend,” Vas says, flexing his hand and wincing.

“I didn’t realize dating me was that terrible of a concept.” Josh climbs up to dig the first aid kit out of the truck bed, one foot planted on the step and leaning over the side in an attempt to retrieve it from where it slid over to the middle. There’s a strangled noise from Vas behind him that’s almost drowned out by the triumphant shout he lets out when he retrieves the kit. He digs out one of the cold compresses and cracks it before handing it over to Vas for his hand.

“Gracias,” Vas says, still sounding off.

“What?”

“Güero, you’re in a skirt—a _short_ skirt—and you just climbed up and bent over the side of the truck.” Vas says it slowly, like Josh is being dumb, and Josh cringes when it clicks. Oh, _fuck_.

“Uh. I don’t suppose nobody saw?” he asks, hoping that no one else had been in the parking lot. He isn’t used to the concept of a skirt yet, so sue him.

“You’re so lucky I was the only one here. Nobody else saw your Spider-Man underwear,” Vas says and Josh hits him in the arm. Sometimes, he wonders why the hell he’s stuck on Vas, of all people, but the bruises on Vas’s hand answer that one.

“I don’t wear Spider-Man underwear and you know it.” He climbs into the truck and starts it. If Vas is fine enough to be a sarcastic asshole, he’s fine enough for Josh to drag shopping, since he volunteered. “Let’s go, already. Or are you going to nurse that hand forever?”

As if proving him wrong, Vas gives him the finger and climbs into the passenger seat.

“Let’s go so we can get food. I’m starving.”

The shopping, thank fuck, doesn’t take long. For all he wants to wear skirts instead of pants, he doesn’t find shopping any less torturous than before. The longest part of it is trying on a skirt Vas finds for him, which he refuses to buy because it’s even shorter than the one he’s wearing and fuck that. He couldn’t even wear it to school, and it’s not like he has a boyfriend or girlfriend that’ll appreciate it. He buys a few pairs of basic tights and the patterned pair that Vas talks him into and then they’re done, thank god. He’s not doing that again. Possibly ever, if he can avoid it.

The amount of effort it takes to get the tights on in the truck without kicking Vas in the face or breaking something is grankly absurd. It might help a little if he already knew how to put tights on, but it’s too late for that. When he manages to do it without ripping a hole in them or getting his foot stuck in the steering wheel again, he looks over at Vas to ask if it looked as comical as it felt only to find Vas staring at him again.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Vas sounds like he doesn’t want to talk about it, so Josh lets it drop.

He steals almost all of Vas’s fries at dinner and gives up the lion’s share of the cheesecake in exchange, feet stretched out and tucked against Vas’s under the table. They fence with their forks for the last bite of cheesecake and Josh cheats, nudging his foot against Vas’s leg in an attempt to break his concentration. It fails, but he keeps trying, letting his foot creep higher until he hits Vas’s knee. It startles Vas bad enough that he drops his fork and Josh steals the last bite before he can recover, letting out pleased noises while he savors it.

When he tunes back in to the world around him, Vas looks amused and reaches up to wipe something off Josh’s lip with his thumb. He leans back enough to see the cheesecake remains there. Before he can think about it, Josh tugs Vas’s hand closer and cleans the cheesecake off, scraping his teeth over the skin once he’s done in case he missed anything.

When he realizes exactly how _bad_ of an idea that was, Josh groans and hits his forehead off the table. He should have just brought Emma and told Vas to go home.

“Sorry, that was inappropriate,” he says, talking to a table for the second time today just so he can avoid looking at Vas.

“I knew you liked cheesecake, güero, but I didn’t think it was that much.”

“You’re an asshole,” Josh says, looking up and glaring at Vas. Vas just grins at him, unrepentant and a little smug, for some reason.

* * *

It’s Saturday and Josh isn’t leaving his bed for anything. He’s staying in and avoiding the world, avoiding _Vas_. He’s got practice later, so he’ll have to get up then, but until two, he’s becoming one with his bed and doing his damnedest to get over Vas.

The fact that he can’t stop thinking about all the shit that’s happened as of late is a slight impedance in the plan. The incident in the diner, the locker room, Vas’s resolute insistence that he’s not leaving Josh, no matter what.

He had been content to stay Vas’s best friend until they went off to separate colleges, where he’d fade into the background of Vas’s life and maybe get the fuck over him. _That_ had been before he’d almost kissed Vas in the locker room, before Vas had cemented his place as Josh’s best friend by beating the hell out of some asshole _again_ , before he’d realized quite how gone he was on Vas.

And really, this had all started when he decided to wear the damn skirt. He raises his head from his pillow and glares at the uniform skirt hanging over the back of his desk chair like it’s personally offended him. Part of him wants to shove it in a box in the corner and pretend it didn’t exist, that it had never happened, that everything could go back to normal.

He could, he knows. He could go to Leni and ask for a guy’s uniform, donate the skirt Vas bought him to a thrift store, throw out the tights. He could, there’s nothing keeping him from doing it except for the fact that the idea makes his heart seize and ache in his chest.

His phone buzzes on the bedside table and he looks at it to find a text from Billy, along with a stack of unread messages from Vas that he’s been ignoring in an attempt to distance himself.

_Don’t chicken out, fucker._

Fucking Billy. Josh has no idea how the hell Billy knows what he’s thinking, though Vas probably has something to do with it. His phone buzzes again.

_Nobody gives a shit if you wear a skirt, okay? And Vas fucking loves you, idiot._

Josh gives his phone the finger and curses his friends. Billy knows him a little too well, considering their friendship consists of threats of violence, stupid dares, and finding out who can cuss in more languages. Billy might be a shit-stirrer and like to get him to make a fool of himself, but he wouldn’t fuck with Josh when it matters, when it comes to Vas.

Which means Vas fucking _loves_ him, holy _shit_.

Josh buries his head in his pillow again and groans loud enough that the entire bed vibrates. He has no idea what to do with this information, but at least he knows that Vas loves him back. He’s never been quite so happy to be wrong about something.

The skirt, he’s still not sure about. He still wants them, still wants to wear them. Hell, he’d go back and buy the one Vas suggested he get if he thought someone would appreciate it. That thought sparks another groan because _wow_ , he’s an idiot. Vas has been nothing but appreciative and supportive and Josh realizes, with sudden clarity, that Vas would appreciate it, that Vas had tossed it at him because he wanted to see Josh in that.

_I’m a fucking moron._

He sends the text to Billy before sighing and rolling onto his back to stare at his ceiling. There’s glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck up there from when he was ten and thought they were the coolest thing ever. He remembers Vas climbing up on a chair, way taller than him back then, to reach the ceiling and put them up there. It was back before Vas went by his last name, so there’s a J and an F made of stars next to each other, and Josh wonders how the fuck he missed this.

He thinks he could be okay with swallowing his nerves and wearing the skirts he wants, if Vas is there to make him feel better. He still has no clue what might be behind the desire to wear skirts, but he’s not sure he’ll figure that one out at _all_ , let alone now. The bigger problem is getting enough skirts to replace all his damn jeans, cause god knows he won’t go back to those unless he has to. The very _idea_ makes him uncomfortable.

His phone vibrates again and he picks it up, reading Billy’s first.

_No shit. Glad you figured it out._

Josh has no idea how he’s friends with someone who’s as much of an asshole as Billy. He really doesn’t. Vas’s texts are the same as usual, fortunately, no worry or questions that Josh doesn’t know how to answer.

_You’re giving me a ride home from practice right?_

_Ana and her boyfriend broke up, send help._

_If I have to listen to one more Mariah Carey song, I’m going to die and haunt you, chingado, come rescue me._

_Seriously, SAVE ME._

_I’m dead and writing this from beyond the grave and you’re going to deal with me haunting your dumb ass until you die too. I’ll just play Always Be My Baby on loop and make you suffer like I did._

_Soccer practice is starting. See you after._

Josh gets up and gets dressed. He’s got an hour until practice and he thinks he knows how he’s going to handle Vas.

* * *

After practice is over, he showers and gets dressed, pulling the newly-purchased skirt on over his tights and adjusting it until he isn’t quite so self-conscious about the length. He’s wearing his lucky t-shirt and another of Vas’s plaid shirts, one that Vas always gripes about whenever Josh wears it, even though he grins at Josh with that same soft, fond look he had when he said Josh looked good in the uniform. Josh crosses his fingers and hopes that he gets that look again this time.

It takes more effort than Josh cares to admit to walk out to the parking lot towards his truck, where he knows Vas is waiting. He’s right, and Vas grins at him when he walks over, the same grin Josh was hoping for. He tosses his backpack in the bed on autopilot and leans against the side of the truck with his arms crossed, trying to figure out how to say something without sounding as stupid as he feels.

“I know you hate some of the dumb movie clichés,” Vas says, beating him to the punch for once. “I know this. You bitch every time we watch The Breakfast Club, whenever I try to put on Drive Me Crazy, even Pretty In Pink.”

Oh god, of course Vas has a speech planned. His best friend is a dweeb.

“Do you have a point, Vas, or are you just reminding me that I have plenty of ammunition to mock you with if I feel like it?” Vas glares at him and Josh just grins in response. He knows where this is going, but he’s going to give Vas shit every step of the way. It’s just who he is.

“I think half the reason you hate The Breakfast Club is because you’re actually Bender.” Josh opens his mouth to reply and Vas keeps glaring at him, so he shuts up. “I’ll skip to the fucking end, güero, _happy_?”

“Ecstatic,” Josh says, grin widening when Vas looks like he’s trying to not be nervous. Josh’s grin seems to annoy Vas, though, because he glares again.

“You talk first then, cabrón, since you can’t seem to shut up,” Vas says and Josh won’t back down from a challenge like that, damn it.

“Te amo, Vas,” he says. Vas looks a little stunned. Whether that’s because Josh said it in Spanish or because he said it at _all_ , Josh doesn’t know. He shakes it off after a minute and says it back and Josh feels something loosen in his chest. He reaches out and wraps his fingers around the collar of Vas’s soccer jersey, pulling him close enough for Josh to lean in and kiss him.

Fucking _finally_.

This time, when Vas’s hand ends up under Josh’s skirt, there’s not a knock to interrupt him, though the commentary from the peanut gallery is fucking annoying. He has no idea how the fuck they found out, but he’d love it if they could _go away_.

“In public? Really?” He’s going to stab Billy with a pencil one of these days.

But Josh doesn’t back down from a challenge, so he slides one hand under Vas’s jersey and the other into Vas’s hair and pulls, like he did back in the locker room. Vas’s groan is almost drowned out by the one from everyone else.

“You don’t want to see it, fuck off,” Josh yells when he pulls away from Vas long enough to glare at everyone else, who all roll their eyes at him. At least they walk away afterward and leave him to go back to kissing Vas.

(He needs new friends.)

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus notes!
> 
> — Not mentioned in this fic: Horne, who’s totally a year or two older than them and off at college a couple towns over.  
> — Red isn’t his actual name, just a nickname from an incident when they were freshmen where he tried to dye his hair. It ended up pink instead of red. He still insisted otherwise.  
> — Goody’s name isn’t Goodnight. Goody’s just a nickname he got from Billy.  
> — Vasquez’s first name is Francisco and he flat refuses to go by it. The only people who know it are the group, who have all known him since kindergarten.  
> — Josh’s mom in this fic is one of those moms who is, like, aggressively caring and accepting, so he never really worries about that one here. She already knows he’s bi, so he figures the skirt thing isn’t going to be that much of a deal. (Josh has enough shit going on in this verse without worrying about a transphobic mother.)  
> — This’ll come up in a later fic, but Josh had an asshole ex-boyfriend. Vas beat the hell out of him.
> 
> If my best friend has her way, I’ll be writing Vas’s point of view at some point soon. So keep an eye out for that, I guess.


End file.
